While management games are not the most numerous currently, Gaming Minds and Kalypso Media are trying to take a vacant place with Railway Empire, their railway management game. You will be taken to America in the late 1800s – early 1900s, the ideal period for the development of trains.As you can see, the concept is rather simple: create your railways to connect more and more cities and above all… be richer and richer! On paper, the concept is simple and effective… So, now, what is Railway Empire worth in practice? We tested it on PC, here is our opinion.
From the launch, you are facing many possibilities of play, it starts pretty well! Let's launch our first Railway Empire campaign…
In this campaign mode, you do not have the choice of your starting city, nor the number of competitors, everything is imposed on you. Rest assured, the first campaign allows you to discover all the basics of the game, without any opponent! A very smooth start, but so essential! So you learn how to connect two cities together, then three, then four…But of course, it's not about making these connections just any way, remember that you're also looking to make money!
It should therefore be noted that there are small farms producing different raw materials (wheat, corn, milk, cotton) essential to the operation of factories located in the city. Before your arrival, all transport is done by horse-drawn carriage, a fashionable but slow means of transport. You therefore understand that the arrival of a train from these farms to the cities will be very useful for the development of the latter. Since yes, you don't just have to connect cities together, you also have to develop them. Of course, this is also out of interest, since the bigger the city, the more it will need you! Each city has specific needs depending on its population and businesses. Thus, a company producing beer will in no way need cattle … but rather wheat! Be attentive and look carefully at the needs of the city, all this data is easily accessible. A desire for a monopoly on a specific raw material? Want to buy all the small farms around? Want to set up your own business in the city? A museum ?.. Anything is possible, please yourself (and your wallet!).
In these campaigns, you have goals to achieve within a limited time frame. These objectives can be "Connect city A to city B" or "Connect farm A to city B" or "Increase the population of city A to Y inhabitants", as much as connecting cities between them will be childishly simple, as much to increase the population, You will need more action. It will be necessary to build a real (big and beautiful!) network. Once these goals are completed, you move on to the next region, a report of your performance will then be provided. A damaging point is the fact that the progression in Region 1 is not maintained for the next region. We have to start again from scratch, but what is most annoying is the limitation to the region we are building. No link possible to the previously developed region. We could have imagined thousands of kilometres of journeys through our stations in different regions, but no.
We were talking about the objectives in time, know that you will be able to stick to the history of the train, since a "research and development" part exists in your company and will offer you improvements for your. Since yes, you necessarily start with a simple locomotive, not (at all!) powerful/fast, we are far from a TGV, but, at this time, it is already exceptional! You will be able to gain speed, power, safety, reliability … but also take the opportunity to increase the price of travel (Yes! I told you, we want to get rich!).
We told you about the competitors absent during the first campaign, know that they arrive from the 2nd region! They are two and start by developing "in their corner". This arrival of competition brings a new financial aspect in the game with the possibility of buying shares in the company of your competitors (or even merging with!). This aspect certainly deserved to be further developed. Since no matter how many shares you hold in the company, you do not have the opportunity to influence the different choices of the company, even if you own more than 50% of the shares!
The arrival of competition is also synonymous with war where all shots are allowed. Let's hire a journalist to give bad publicity to the competitor in order to see his stock market shares decrease? Block a train on the tracks in order to make its trains pass first? Everything is possible now! Enjoy!
The mechanics of Railway Empire are quite simple, once the first campaign is over, you will have the right reflexes. Namely that you need a departure station and an arrival station (logical, isn't it?!) that you connect with different tracks, but be careful which paths you will take, it is expensive to have to dig tunnels or build bridges, the creation system is rather well done, you can adjust the trajectory of the line as you wish. You also need a maintenance building in some cities to maintain your machines, as well as regularly on the tracks of the assembly towers to allow your machines to always run well. Once you've completed these steps, it's time to purchase your locomotive. Choose there (when you have the choice…) Depending on the route you are going to make (goods / passengers), finally, you can assign your mechanics to a line (which can pass through several stations!).
The game mechanics are simple, but Railway Empire won't necessarily be. When you have two trains, two stations, everything is fine. But, to develop, you will need much more and everything must roll! It is therefore necessary to take into account the possible crossings of trains: yes, it is a game of management, but still, we do not run the trains in any way! It's like in real life, a train on a track… Think carefully about line changes. And then, you also have to take into account the management of staff on trains, you can (yes, it's not an obligation, but it's better to have some!) have an engineer, driver, driver and guard on the train. 4 people in a train, multiplied by the number of trains … We come to something very complex. Especially since, these 4 people are humans, and … They don't necessarily all get along together. Imagine a train stopping in the middle of the tracks because of staff arguing? A disaster!
The soundtrack is rather well chosen, in coherence with the theme, the era … The Wild West! Adapted, but that's not what we will remember from Railway Empire anyway. The graphics are correct and then, after all, this is a management game, we do not necessarily need mind-blowing graphics, you will be able to realize it when you decide to watch from a train the course, it is not unpleasant, but not exceptional either. We will still regret some fixed NPCs. A more accomplished work on the navigation in the game would have pleased me, for example, not having to use the famous Z-Q-S-D to move around the map, or making sure that the esc key leaves the mode in which we are (construction, destruction …) instead of opening the main menu … It is also not easy to have a global vision on the whole region, the zoom is not far enough … so it is not easy to find your way around, where is the city of Grand Rapids? Yes, it is indeed the United States, it is not the France! Maybe a multiplayer mode would have been interesting in Railway Empire, or, at least, a co-op mode would have been a big plus.
Finally, we told you about the many possibilities of games, know indeed, that there are other modes outside the Campaign, we find there:
- The Scenario mode where you can choose the time in which you start your activity, choose the level of AI (normal – difficult – very difficult), whether the railway network should be realistic or easy (then trains do not have traffic problems) as well as the ticket prices (reduced or normal)
- Free Mode mode, similar to Scenario mode with even more customization possibilities.
- Sandbox mode with unlimited money, no competitor, starting city to choose. The mode where you can do anything and everything, train, have fun building endless roads….
In short, you have a very good management game on hand. Very complete, without bugs encountered, in areas where there are very few, with an almost unlimited lifespan due to the existence of several regions and infinite development possibilities… The only limit will be your imagination. So, join us on PC, PS4 or Xbox One!
